How to Kill Water Bugs

By Michael Piacenza ; Updated September 21, 2017

A water bug, or cockroach, is an animal that is constantly cleaning itself, so it's important to use pesticides in order to kill them. Learn about using mineral-based products to kill water bugs with help from a pest control technician in this free video on bugs and pest extermination.

Transcript

Hi one of the most common questions I get is how to kill water bugs. Let me help you with that. I'm Michael Piacenza with Advantage Pest Control. Well what is a water bug? Well a water bug is kind of a nice name for a cockroach and it is just about any kind of cockroach, German roaches, Asian roaches, American roaches, I don't care what country they come from, that's a water bug. So how do you kill them? Well they are kind of a dirty animal from our perspective. They'll traipse across things and they can actually bring a lot of bacteria, salmonella, all kinds of stuff into your house and across your food but they are constantly cleaning themselves so the best way to kill them is to actually get a pesticide on them. Now you can use very very safe products. You can use mineral based boric acid. You can use botanicals. You can use synthetics. If you can get them to walk across any area that has a dust or a spray that gets on them they are going to clean themselves and then they are going to ingest it. That is going to knock them out. It is a boric acid. It is going to screw up the digestive system. If it is a synthetic it is going to affect their neurotransmitters. If it is an essential oil it is going to get on their skin and either dry out the wax or it is going to plug up their breathing tubes. There are a lot of ways to kill them. You have got to get into their harborage though. You have got to get in where they live. You can't just spray it around big areas and hope they're going to walk through it. German roaches stay in really small areas. They may live within a cabinet so you have got to get into those cracks and crevices where they live and you will get it under control. I hope this has been helpful. I'm Michael Piacenza. Good day.

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About the Author

Michael Piacenza, technician and K-9 Handler, joined Advantage Pest Control in 2007 to expand upon the eco-friendly service offerings and initiate the K-9 termite inspection team. Piacenza uses natural and organic pesticides, as well as a termite-sniffing K-9 to hunt down and kill bugs.